[Sermones "Dormi secure" de tempore]

the world and the heaven, and He placed the sun, the stars, and the moon. If the stars were to fall, He would not place them back in their original location, because He would be annihilating His own perfect work. And although man has free will, knowing good and evil, yet he falls a thousand times from his upright state to the state of a sinner, and yet He receives him back into grace just as a son, as is clear in that parable of the prodigal son. The second reason is that it is a greater miracle to receive a sinner into grace than to create a new world. God created the world without any help and resistance, as is clear in Genesis 1. But He cannot take a sinful man into grace according to His justice without the help of the sinner, and the help of the sinner is only to say four words with the contrition of the heart, namely: Lord, I have sinned, have mercy on me, as is clear in the Psalms. The third reason is that when God created heaven and earth, the angels did not rejoice as much as they do over the conversion of a sinner, as the Lord Himself testified in the Gospel, Luke 15: There is joy among the angels of God over one sinner performing penance than over ninety-nine just persons who do not need penance. And thus the second miracle is clear. The third miracle that all men admire is the state of the change of the world by the right hand of the Most High. And for that reason, it is compared to the wheel of fortune in which four sit. Whence we read that the Romans depicted the change of the world as a wheel in which four sat. One was in the middle of the wheel ascending, and beside him they wrote, "I shall reign," and one at the top of the wheel, "I reign," and one in the middle descending, "I have reigned," and one lying beneath the wheel, "I am without a kingdom." To the point, this wheel signifies the state of this world, because

as a wheel is turned, so is the state of the world. Whence we see that now a man is rich, now poor, now happy, now sad, now strong, now infirm, etc. And the four on the wheel signify the four states of this world. For the first said on the wheel ascending: "I shall reign," with regard to the future, because he who is born intends to reign in the world. Yet often many fall from the wheel before they come to reigning; this is because they die in youth. The second said: "I reign," and he was sitting above, this is in the present, those who live, drink, eat, and play, and these rule; but often they fall, pushed from the wheel, and they die. The third said, descending from the wheel: "I have reigned," and these are those who are seventy or eighty years old, because for them the world perishes. The fourth, lying beneath the wheel, said: "I am without a kingdom." These are the dead, cast out. Therefore, every man admires this. Therefore he says: The wonders of His works are hidden from men, because man does not know when he falls from the wheel. The fourth miracle that men admire is the glorification of the elect, which will be on the day of judgment, when He will call His elect and glorify them. Whence Psalm: God is wonderful in His saints. Whence the Lord desires to do three things for the glory of His elect. First, He wishes to contemplate all angels, all demons, all rational creatures, Jews, pagans, for their glory in the elect of God, as is clear in the Psalm: He called the heaven from above, that is, the angels, and the earth from below, that is, the lower creatures, to discern His people. Second, He wishes to call the whole world to such a feast day, as Revelation 21 says: Behold, I make all things new. Third, He wishes to commend all His saints